Avengers One-Scene Mini-Fics
by KCUrquhart
Summary: A series of unrelated and unconnected single scene mini-fics set within the Avengers universe. Essentially they are scenes that I see being true of the characters, but that don't necessarily fit into any larger fics. So I'll place them here.
1. Nest of Ashes

The tears were streaming down his face. He didn't bother trying to wipe them away. He couldn't. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't live. Couldn't think about having to get up tomorrow. Having to face the world as if everything was perfect. As if he was still the same Clint Barton he had always been. Because he wasn't. He had never been that Clint Barton. Everything he pretended to be every day, was just that, pretend.

He acted tough. He acted like a cocky flirt. He acted like he had no cares. No worries. No problems. When in reality, his world had crashed down around him when he was six years old and he had been trying to rebuild it ever since. All he'd managed to accomplish was to hollow out a nest for himself in the ashes.

In the end the tears stopped, as they did every night. He curled deeper into his bed and set his alarm. Tomorrow was going to come, whether he wanted it to or not. Tomorrow always did. He would get up and face it as he did every other day. He would plaster a fake smile on his face and throw an ego in everyone's face to keep them from digging deeper. He'd protect himself and push back the emptiness, at least until he was back safe at home. Until he was alone again. Until he had a spare moment to look back around at the ashes in his mind and heart and wonder just how long until he was finally free.


	2. Graffiti

It started a few hours after the Battle of New York. The walls of the alleys around Stark Tower slowly started filling up with graffiti. At first it was basic things, Cap's shield, Tony's Iron Man mask. Even eventually a SHIELD logo and, after the official press release, the Avengers A. Tony insisted on the marks all being left on the walls. Though, Clint noticed his support for the graffiti increased greatly after one artist did a particularly amusing depiction of Justin Hammer being squashed beneath one of Iron Man's boots.

Eventually someone labeled it the "Wall of Heroes". People began leaving their own stories. Small things or big about everyday people who had done heroic things. A firefighter who had pulled a boy from a burning building. A nurse who took extra time to make her patients feel at home. A grandfather who had stepped up after the father had left. Normal people doing the things that made the world a better place.

There was an unwritten rule about the Wall. Never erase or destroy or cover up anything that anyone else had done. You could comment, sure, and people /loved/ to comment. There was a ten foot bubble of space around the Justin Hammer piece that was covered in praise for the artist and for Iron Man. This rule was why there were some pieces on the Wall that most people couldn't explain. Usually they were quick little comments, too personal to mean anything to anyone besides the person who did it.

But there was one piece, huge purple letters that no one really understood. Something that Clint hadn't been able to resist adding as the wall had first begun. Two words to remind the world of who the real hero behind the Battle of New York was, even if his deeds were still technically classified as Top Secret. A small monument to the man who he had, at the time, just discovered had survived Loki's attack after all.

Coulson Lives.


	3. We Were Going To Go Dancing

When they find Captain America buried in the ice, it's global news. Every station in every country is reporting it. But it's nothing more than old war-time photos plastered behind talking heads. There is nothing there that Peggy doesn't see in the photo album sitting on her dresser.

She's sitting in the nursing home, the first time she sees the report. But to her the pictures of the blonde man no longer stir any sort of feelings. Disease and old age have stolen her memories from her. Even if there is a small flicker of recognition, that this man is something more, it is gone before it even registers.

If she goes to her room a few hours later and starts flipping through that old photo album, she isn't really sure why.

It makes the news again, when Steve wakes up. Again there is this momentary flash of something greater, but again the disease wipes away any chance she had of remembering why.

For a few months the news is silent. Peggy wakes up each morning, stiff and sore like always, but there's something different in it. Something feels out of place but she can't think of what. It's the most frustrated she's been since she first starting losing her memory.

Peggy's certain that nothing is different; that each day is exactly as the last. Surely that framed photo of her and Howard and Colonel Phillips had always been sitting on her bedside table. Though, if she really struggled, she felt like maybe she could remember digging it out of the bottom of a dresser drawer and setting it up just a few days ago.

That small compass too. Surely that had always been sitting out with the lid flipped open, showing a picture of a lovely young woman taped to the inside. The woman looked somehow familiar, like she'd seen the face before. But she could never remember where. And whenever she tried, she forgot halfway through what it was that she was even trying to remember.

Those quiet months passed in silent struggle for Peggy, as suddenly she was faced with that lingering feeling that something in the world had changed. Something important. Something overwhelmingly personal. It wasn't even a fully formed thought in her mind, just a soft feeling of nostalgia that somehow felt new. But when everything feels new and every day is spent relearning, then nothing can be trusted.

Finally he's on the news again, this time as a part of the Avengers. He'd helped save New York. Peggy had been in her room when she had first heard the news of the attack. A nurse had reminded her halfway down the hall of what the commotion was about. Stepping into the lounge, Peggy pushes her way forward until she can see the tv clearly. At first it's just sweeping shots of charred buildings and bodies covered in white sheets. She'd asked a nurse once why those sort of images never fazed her, when everyone else seemed so upset. The nurse had told her that she'd lived through a war. A war Peggy couldn't remember beyond a faint feeling of finding something, only to lose it again.

Then they show the blonde man, the one from Peggy's photo album. He's bruised and bloody and his uniform is torn in places, but it is finally something she recognizes. Stars and stripes. A bright blue and red and white with that same circular shield. Best of all, as the camera zooms in, she can see those same eyes and that same weary smile.

Peggy's heart is lighter than she can ever remember. She wants to dance and sing, even as she is surrounded by a room full of people in shock and mourning. Because she knows this man, even if she can't think of his name. But there it is, flashing across the bottom of the screen: Captain America.

She turns to the nurse standing closest to her and whispers "We were going to go dancing together."

The nurse just smiles and nods, the same face she makes when Mr. Horner claims to be the King of France. And it makes Peggy furious, but... but she can't remember why. She turns to see a man on the tv lifting a red, white, and blue shield into place on his arm. But all she sees now is just another face, another person, another nameless thing she doesn't recognize.

A nurse leads her back to her room and she has to wipe away tears that she doesn't remember crying.


End file.
